Amazing... That´s all I can Say

So, we´ve been having a really cool week, all topped off by a really neat Pday.  Dat´s right, just used the word neat!

We had been having problems setting a date for baptism for this lady and her four boys... mostly bc of the 16 year old boy.  He was just being sort of lazy about baptism... We had no idea what to do.  We finally got him alone and talked.  He had literally no desires at all.  Pretty weathy and said he´d never had any need for anything in his life.  Never had a trial.  Ugh.  So we spoke pretty blunt to him.  Tried to inspire him.  Tried everything.  In the end I just thought, "this kid just won´t give place in his heart for this stuff."  We knew he could holdup the whole fam in the end.  I thought "just have him read Alma 32"... and in the end he actually read it!  I couldn´t believe it cuz he said the Book of Mormon was too boring. haha.

We talked to him and he said that he knew he was ready for baptism but didn´t feel it yet.  When he read Alma 32, he said he realized that if he didn´t get baptized, it would just be a matter of time his his seed (tree) would die.  Awesome!  So that wasn´t what I was shooting for, but I guess what Elder Bednar said was true.  If you´re living righteously every thought is a Spiritual Prompting.  Love it!  So they are all getting baptized this Saturday!!!

Today I bought a sick Ranaldo jersy.  Real Madrid.  thats what´s up.

clearly i like jumping... and that last one is my dist leader.  haha.  Elder Shirley.  Totally awesome.  Here´s one with him and my comp and I.  elder Anderson.
I´m also in the one with the big pyramid.  I´m just really small.  haha.

This last one is my last comp and I and Melissa.  she got baptized the Saturday after they closed the area.  she´s really awesome. I called her last monday and verified.  She was really happy.  Love her to death.  Kinda funny.

I love this area. love my comp Elder Anderson. love this mission!!!



Love,

Elder Kent Thalman

The Spirit has Called Him to Another Place

So... I got tranfered.  But honestly, the worst part is that they closed my area.  Bishop Funes and the Stake Pres called my mission pres to ask him not to do it, but we simply don´t have enough missionaries to keep it open.  Nuevo San Juan will still be made a branch, and i know the Lord will watch over His flocks over there.


Now for the good part.  My new area is La Florida (Flor EE da) in Copan.  If you know anything about Copan, that´s where all the cool ruins in Honduras are.  We are really close to all of them, and for pday, we will visit them all before we go.  I´m so excited!!!  My dad will be jealous. ;)


We´re up high in the mountains and it is really cool.  We also have air conditioning in the room where we sleep.  I´m blown away.  I feel like I live in another country.  My last area was so small.  like walk all the way around it in 30min small.  Here, you can´t drive from one end to the other in less than 3 or 4 hours.  Crazy.  Our branch pres lives 2 hours away walking.  He lives in the mountains where it´s impossible to drive.  We´re going to his house next Sat.  with the climate in this area, my skin is feeling a lot better, and the problem should go away now permanantly in just a few more days.  Hurray!


We have a church house in this area!  Who´d have thought I´d be so excited.  haha.  The branch is pretty small, and like always, a lot of less actives, but I love it.  The members are really excited to work with us.  They all like me and my companion.  We´re teaching a bunch of people, and this area is really stellar.  We had 13 investigators in church....  yeah.  that´s a great change from the max of 4 in my last area. 


My companion is Elder Anderson, from Idaho.  He´s a real nerd, and we get along great!  He only has a little more than 2 months more than me which I like.  The younger missionaries always work harder I find. 


My zone leader is... my DAD!!!  haha.  Elder Polendo, who trained me is already a zone leader, and he only has 10 months in the mish.  We all keep telling him he´s gonna be Assistant.  He doesn´t want to be.  He´s an awesome missionary, and I´m so glad I´ll get to work with him a little bit once again.  I´ve really missed him.


Story time.


We´re preparing a woman and her four grandsons for baptism.  Norma is the most well prepared investigator we have ever found in our lives.  she has such a powerful testimony and read the BOM like crazy.  We went to teach her the word of wisdom a few nights ago. Knowing the people here, we thought for sure she´d have a coffee problem.  Turns out, we explained a little to her about the word of wisdom, and she cut us off before we could explain anything.


"In this house we don´t drink alcohol, and there´s no tobacco.  Never.  And we don´t like any other drugs.  Tea and Coffee are bad too, and we don´t drink those anymore!"


"umm.... where did you learn that?"


She explained that she didn´t learn it in church. she just always knew it was bad and that she shouldn´t have been doing it.  We asked her how long it had been since she drank coffee.  she said she always knew it was bad, but knowing that she was preparing to be baptized, she quit.  she´s not had any for over a week now!  How nuts!  She taught HERSELF the word of wisdom and started living it before we said anything!  haha.  The Lord really does prepare these people.


Something else to give you a culture idea.  After that appointment, we left her house to visit a young 17 year old kid who wants to be baptized named Manuel.  Norma´s house is huge.  Nicer than a lot of houses I´ve seen in the states.  Manuel lives in a mud shack smaller than my room.  He said he didn´t feel comfortable going to church because he doesn´t have shoes...


The Lord´s children are one.  He can touch the hearts of the rich and the poor.  The bond and the free.  This is not an American church, nor is it for the rich.  I know that God loves each and every one of His children.  I´ve seen him touch the hearts of so many different people and different sides of the world... but it´s the same message.  It´s true.


I love and miss you all, and will try and find a way to send mail to the states so that it doesn´t get lost.  Please forgive me if you haven´t gotten letters from me.  Chances are, I´ve written you.  Continue in patience.  I´m so grateful and humbled by those who have written me with no reply at all.  thank you so much!


Mitra, and John Ross.  I still need your addresses if you read this.  Thanks.


Love,


Elder Kent Thalman

Open Houses and Open Hearts

So, I did not write a single soul last week.  I am sorry.


First, I will explain the Open Houses.  We started doing a little activity to try and excite people to go to church on Sunday.  Saturday at night we discovered nobody does anything, so we started showing cool church videos in the little house we call church.  The whole idea was to send less actives and investigators to bed Saturday night thinking about church Sunday morning.


Last Saturday we had our first try.  We basically spent the whole day just inviting tons of people.  Then, it started to rain... okay, people here really don´t go places if it´s raining.  Then, while praying that it would all just work out and stop raining... the power goes out in the whole are near the church!  No!!!!!!  Also, no power in our house.  So, you can´t really use a tv without power.  At the point of giving up, Hermano Tony calls us and says we´re gonna do it anyway.  In the end, we just did it in the house of a member that had a tv and power.  It was really great, and all the people at the activity came to church the next day!  We haven´t been able to get more than 30 people to church for the whole transfer.  Last week we couldn´t fit into the little house!!!  It was awesome!  46 people!!!!!  Who´da thought 46 was so many.  I was worried that it was a one time thing.


We did the activity again this Saturday with many more people, including several investigators.  Yesterday we had.... wait for it...
47!  haha.  I was stoked. 
Our little 16 year old Melissa came, and is totally ready for baptism this Saturday.  She´s awesome, and is already going to seminary and making friends.  she´ll be a great member.  We´re also working with our ward missionaries that we didn´t know we had.  We found out last week that Joselyn is a ward missionary, so we started bringing her to lessons.  She was really excited, and I can see how she is helping our investigators.  But more than that, she is more solid coming to church herself, and is activating other less actives.


In the end, we only have had one baptism in the last 12 weeks.  I´m really not used to that.  But we just got approval to be made a branch!!!  And they´re searching for a lot to put a building in the colony of Nuevo San Juan!  It´s gonna be awesome, and I know that a building will increase activity, organization, and baptisms.  It will also be great to have priesthood leadership in the area.  I´m so excited for the growth we´re seeing in this area.


Open Hearts.  We found a family last week that is pure gold.  We contacted the husband and then started teaching the wife.  They accepted to be married and baptized in the very first visit.  We haven´t been able to teach them in their home since, but the husband and daughter came  to the last activity Saturday and church yesterday.  Some people are just prepared.  I can´t wait to see what happens with this family.  His name is Alfredo.


I already told you about Melissa.  We also found a guy named Cesar.  Super cool!  His wife and him are planning on getting married.  She´s not all that interested, but he has spoken with missionaries before.  He said he almost became a member last time.  "What stopped you?"  He replied, "they took the missionaries out of the area, changed the building, and I started working Sundays.  But now my wife and I are thinking about getting married, and I don´t work Sundays as of last week."


"perfect.  So, we meet in a house in the 2nd level near so and so.  Do you want to get baptized this time?" 


"Oh, absolutely!"


Haha.  I love this guy.  We don´t know why he didn´t come to church Sunday, but I´m sure he´ll start progressing.  He´s been prepared, I think we´ll just have to fellowship a little bit.


I keep saying this to my comp.  I don´t want a change!!!  This area is honestly killing me.  I have had all sorts of problems with the sun killing my skin and getting sick before (I´m totally fine now, so please don´t freak out), but I love this area.  There are a lot of people that are so close to baptism and others that just started but are golden.  I really love the members here too.  Even investigators that don´t want to progress.  Sometimes we eat with people who don´t even want to listen to us, but love us and give us food.  Usually they are family of members, and really funny.  I love them all, even though it pains me to not see them progress.  I´ll let you all know next week about transfers.


I love and miss you all!


Quick shout out.  Mitra, Ariel Stewart, Amanda Mo, John Ross, Kyle Reis... and any other friends enrolled in college.  I have no idea where to send letters.  Please post your addresses as comments on this blog post and my mom will email them to me.  Thanks!!!


I have sent other letters to family and friends regularly, but no one has reported any reception.  I get all the letters you all send to me in dearelder and snail mail.  I think.  I apologize for third world mail.


Elder Kent Thalman

Don´t Freak Out. I´m Alive and Baptizing.

That´s right... we had a baptism finally!!!  That´s the first baptism in this area for seven months!  There hasn´t been one since January.  So we´re happy about that, and we are going to have more coming up soon.  One got baptized once and never got confirmed... and there is no record of her baptism, so we have to do it again.  haha.  How weird.  So that´s that, and we will baptize her without complaining. 


This week has been great, and I´ve been totally healthy!  However, one of the brethren in our ward hasn´t been so healthy.  He´s getting a tumor removed, so please pray for him.  His name is Antonio, and he is the most interesting person I have ever met.  When I met him the first time, I was shocked at how well he understood all the doctrine considering he is a convert.  He´s really quite old, and can´t even walk to church.  He was attacked by three men with machettes several years ago, and was hit three times in the neck, so his voice is really soft and a little raspy.  But also epic.


So we were talking to the Bishop about him, and he asked us if we knew his conversion story.  I thought I did, but I´m glad the Bishop told us anyway, cuz it turns out I didn´t.


When he was a lot younger, he worked in a factory, and Nuevo San Juan didn´t even exist yet.  There were no members in that area at all.  One day on the floor at work he found two pages of an unidentified book.  One was the testimony of three witnesses, and the other, a random page that had the words 2 Nefi on top.  He read them and immediately recognized that they were from God.  He tried, but had no way of finding out where the book was, or anything about it.  But somewhere in the pages he saw the word, "Mormon" and it stayed in the back of his mind.


Several years later, he returned home and greeted his wife.  She informed him that two younge men had just come by on bikes with some messages.  They were called Mormons.  He asked her which way they went and then bolted after them on his own bike.  He finally found them and yelled after them.  They stopped and he got to talking with them.  He showed them the two pages and asked if they could identify them.  They showed him The Book of Mormon and where the pages fit in.  They gave him a copy, and as he held that book in his hands for the first time, he stood there a wept.


Later, he was baptized and worked with the missionaries to try and establish the church in the area.  He worked with them all the time, and came under heavy criticism by his former religious friends.  He´s still a very active member (for his weak cercumstances) and his testimony is super powerful.  My comp and I went to visit him before his surgery to comfort him.  We just spent 30min listening to him share his testimonies of simple clear truths.  But the powerful spirit behind his words just left me and my companion in a dumb awe.


I love Antonio, and I am talking to the bishop about recording him sharring his conversion story and testimony on tape and video.  We want the church to publish it, because we know that it would be a powerful missionary tool all over the world.  I´ll let you know how that all goes soon.


This mission is amazing.  If I came here just to get to know that man and share his story, then so be it.  That´s why I´m here.  I hope his story will carry on, changing hearts as an eternal legacy of the Gospel truths that this man represents.  He never served a mission becuase he never had a chance, but how great was his mission.  God truly will let that man´s life stand to confound the false doctrines of the world and bear shinning testimony of the truest book on earth!


I love and miss you all, and hope that you will read that book!  How rare a possession it is! There should not a single day pass by without spending time within its pages.  I bear my own testimony that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.


Love,


Elder Kent Thalman

Moving Forward...

So, no huge huge news for the week, but some cool experiences as Elder Vega and I are trying to boost the area as best we can.  Things are proving harder than we thought as this week we had only two investigators in church, way way less than we were expecting.  We are realizing that we will have to boost the strength of the members here first if God is going to trust this area with new converts.  Tough, but we will not become discouraged!


An update on an investigator named Hector.  This week, we talked to him about how he´s doing with quiting smoking.  He said that he has gone from about 20 cigs a day to 5!  And he hardly drinks coffee now too.  He´s made incredible progress for just one week.  We gave him a blessing, and then commenced to teach lesson one... that turned out to be a funny experience.


We started if he had ever heard the word prophet before.  "well, I think they are people called of God to lead and direct us here on the earth."  That was a little to much of a perfect answer, and my comp and I actually started to laugh a bit.  Then my comp just straight up asked him, "so what do you know about the life of Jesus Christ?" 


"Well, He organized His church, primarily upon the blocks of prophets and apostles, whom He gave His authority to act in His name."  What the!?


We asked him how he knew all that, and aparently he was listening in the other room when the missionaries spoke with his wife when she was baptized.  He didn´t remember too well about the Book of Mormon, so we gave him one and we will see how he does with reading it.  Easiest lesson one I´ve ever taught.  Haha.  I am blown away by the faith of this man!  I really love Hector.


We also have a baptism scheduled for a little girl named Leivi!  This will be this Saturday because she´s come to church for four weeks straight, and we´ve only just now gotten to talk to her.  We didn´t even know if she wanted to be baptized.  We talked to here and said we got permission from her Dad to baptize her, and she just smiled.  We asked if she would like that, and she just smiled and noded her head yes emphatically.  The next day in the lesson, she said she had a dream that she was being baptized and that she can´t wait.  Haha!  How cool is this kid!


We don´t really want to get a reptuation for being baby baptizers as they say, but this girl wants it and this will be the first baptism in Nuevo San Juan since January.  Almost seven months.  Pretty cool.


We´re still preparing many really great investigators, and families!  Byan and Marisela are still really good, and they came to church yesterday minus Bryan.  He said for sure he´ll come next week.  We´re getting them started on family prayers and the Book of Mormon.  I love how much we´re using the Book of Mormon now in the work.  That´s def how it should be.


I love this mission, and can see the hand of God ever in this work and in my soul.  I feel Him changing me, and I´m starting to feel more capable of enduring the trials before me.  That´s what I think David Bednar means when he used the phrase, "enableing power of the Atonement of Christ."  He doesn´t just take things away when they´re hard, but rather He gives us the strength to overcome them through the Atonement that we might grow. 


I have hope that this week will be even better than the last.  I love my companion.  I love this mission.  I love the people here, and mostly, I love the Lord Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father.  I also love and miss you all, and pray that you will try this week to experience the sweet fruits of missionary work in your every day lives this week.  Try and put more effort this week to help someone learn about the gospel and then write me about it! ;)  haha, but seriously.  do it.


Les Quiero mucho,


Elder Kent Thalman

MIRACLE

So, it´s finally happening again.  I´ll explain...


Wednesday, I got my new companion.  Let me first explain some back story.  In my first area, I remember several of the missionaries in my zone.  I really like Colón, and it was an awesome zone.  One of those missionaries was Elder Vega.  He was pretty tall, and honestly, really crazy.  I remember just watching him and thinking, "wow, he seems like he´d be a really immature companion to have."  I didn´t really think about it too much from there. 


At the changes meeting on Wed in San Pedro, I was nervous.  Nervous.  Almost everybody is to get a new companion.  You know me, jittering and twitching, and moving all over.  They keep calling name after name after name... where´s my comp?  Finally they call "Elder Vega...".  He stands up. 


"Elder Vega´s gonna be my comp," I said to Elder Baldwin. 


"...has been to assigned to serve in Nuevo San Juan with Elder Thalman."  I knew it!


Haha.  He might be my favorite comp so far!  A really fun guy, but we W O R K.  And that feels good.  I´m really happy to be talking with everybody again, and I can just see the miracles happening.  You´ve just got to open your mouth, and people will listen.  I´m learning a lot about the kind of missionary I want to be with him.


Saturday we contacted a guy who was just sitting on the grass outside his house reading the paper.  Seemed normal.  We talked for just a moment, and he seemed pretty receptive, and we started to get bold.  Elder Vega asked if he had ever read the book that was in my hand.  I realized I was holding a Book of Mormon, and I handed it to him.  He was immediately interested and was looking at it and skimming its pages the moment I handed it to him.  He said he´d read it and come to church the next day for sure.  We asked him if he´d ever been baptized and if he thought it was important.  "No, but I would say it´s really important."  We asked him right there if he would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized.  He said he would, and we left.  It was a really cool experience!  I love it when stuff like that happens.  He didn´t come to church, but I am sure we can work with this guy to help him progress.


We´re working with two other really great families.  One is a reference from a member.  This member is a little bit like a little girl dispite her having four children, but that´s really normal for all the people here.  However, she is really helpful with these references, and this family is awesome.  We´ve got them to agree to prepare to be married.  Hopefully we´ll be able to help them accept baptism soon, but We´re convinced they´ll progress.


The other family is a street contact, they too are so awesome.  Immediately we met the husband and were talking with the two of them and laughing like we´d been friends forever.  It only took like 5 min to establish a relationship with Marisela and Bryan.  It was probably the most fun I´d ever had in a lesson ever.  We got them to accept to be married, and they are super interested, and seem more responsible than most of the people here, so their commitment to come to church means a little more I feel.  Such a cool family.  I really love them, and am just having so much fun here.


We´re also visiting less actives more diligently and working with the active members as well.  I feel like we are going to start changing this area a lot, and I know we are going to start baptizing a ton.  The fact that this area hasn´t baptized doesn´t mean we can´t do it.  To me, it means that no one has put forth the effort for a really long time here to do it, and now that it´s been so long, there are tons of people prepared.  I feel like we contact really likely baptismal candidates every day now.  It´s only been four days, and I feel like our relationship with the members is excellent, including our communication.


We are looking for a new house, because the water is making my skin break out still with a bacterial infection... so yeah, we´re gonna look for something better.  This place is pretty ghetto to be honest, but I don´t mind it.  My comps last area, as well as mine, were pretty nice.  His was a tourist site, and on the beach.  Trujillo.  The best.  Really really nice.


So yeah,  Elder Vega and me.  He´s from Nicaragua, and he´s totally insane and focused on baptizing tons of people.  Yeah man!  Also, he´s really tall and weak, so I´m taking him to the gym in the mornings... make him strong.  I just wish he could tell me how to get taller.  Haha.


This mission´s the best, and I´m super excited for the next 6 weeks with Elder Vega.  I´m praying that I´ll have to changes with him. 


I know that this work is changing people´s lives.  I am so grateful to God for the oportunity to share these things with everyone I meet.  So grateful for the ways I´m learning and growing, and for the relationships Im developing.  I sent out a few letters.  Thank you so much to those who have written me.  I´m trying my best to write people, but I really don´t get much time.  I´m doing better, so please be patient in getting a response.


I know that Jesus is the Christ.  I know that God calls prophets.  I can´t believe the power I feel whenever I listen to or read the words of our living prophets, seers, and revelators.  I love the Book of Mormon and testify with all my soul that it is true.  Let it change your life.


Les Quiero mucho!


Elder Kent Thalman

They´re Everywhere! Part II

Sooo... first, Elder Tavita has a transfer this week!  Ugh!  So this means that in four changes, I will have had four companions!  I really want to know who my next comp is goin to be.  I hate waiting.


This week has been a lot of fun, and I´ve been having so many great, personal, spiritual experiences.  That´s the point of the title!  Spiritual experiences and miracles ARE EVERYWHERE!  We should have them and recognize them Every Day.  Last night, I finished with everything a little early, so I decided to watch some Preach my Gospel videos about how to help people read the Book of Mormon.  One of them just really helped me figure some stuff out, and I realized that I could be focusing on the Book of Mormon more in this work right now.  At the end of the video it showed a clip from Elder Holland´s famous talk where he really testifies boldly of the Book of Mormon.  I´ve seen that one before, but for some reason, this time something really stuck out to me.  He said something really close to no member or investigator can come to full faith and full conversion in this church without knowledge and conviction of the divinity of this book!  How true!


When I heard those words, once more (and this really hasn´t happened too often for me in my life) I felt a powerful witness in my heart of the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon.  The feeling was rather transcending this time, and I am confident in saying that it was probably the most powerful witness I´ve ever received concerning this thing.  Don´t misunderstand.  Since the beginning of about highschool I think, I´ve known without a doubt that this book is true.  But what I think made the difference this time was simply prayer.  Recently I started including in my prayers to have my testimony of certain things fortified, that I might with more conviction help these people feel the Spirit concerning our message.  I have only very very recently started praying for that the last couple of nights, and did I ever receive an answer!  If God so quickly answers these prayers, I think I will continue asking, in this and other Gospel aspects.


I testify to everyone reading these words that I know for myself that the Book of Mormon is the word of God!  It truly is the very keystone of my testimony.  Because I know that it is God´s word for me in my life, I know that Jesus Christ truly is God´s Son and my Savior.  That´s what the whole book is about.  I also know that Joseph Smith was not a liar.  On the contrary, I know that he most surely was and is the prophet of this last and great dispensation!  How wonderful it is to know these few simple truths in my life!  I want everyone to know and feel these things.  I want the blessings I have because of these things to be a part of everyone elses lives.


I invite everyone to read the Book of Mormon.  If you´ve already read it, please read it again.  If you read it with the Spirit, and prayerfully, it never gets old.  I invite everyone to ask God, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ if it really is true.  If you´ve already asked, ask again.  I testify that He will strengthen whatever conviction you already have of it´s divinity.  Even if that conviction is zero.


So, will you read the Book of Mormon tonight, even just one page, and then ask God to know if it´s true.  I promise you that if you do, you will know, just as I do, that it is true, and that it will bless and guide and change you life forever.


I´m not just saying it.  It´s a promise.  It´s God´s promise.  Prove Him.  In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.


Love,

Elder Kent M. Thalman